2019 Q4: Client Experience & Management
About the Presentation:
Whether you perform a few ceremonies a year or hundreds, thoughtful attention to client experience—from the first meeting to the big day—is paramount to retaining clients and ensuring they feel heard and cared for. On the other hand, your time as a celebrant is limited and delivering high quality services efficiently can be an opposing challenge, especially as you scale up your celebrant practice. In this presentation, Donna Forsythe, Humanist Celebrant and Director of the Celebrant Academy, shares her expertise regarding how to work with clients and manage workflow while planning polished and unique ceremonies.
The discussion will focus on:
- Initial client meeting
- Filing Systems
- Interviewing
- Contact with clients while working with them
- Final meeting before ceremony
- Day of the ceremony
- Benefits of excellent client relationships
- Discussion and Q&A following the presentation
About the Presenter:
Donna Forsythe grew up in a Quaker family. As an adult, she identified as an ‘atheist Quaker’, later realizing this was the foundation for Humanism. Forsythe worked as an inner-city educator for 30 years, when she took a sabbatical in 2014 to earn her Masters in Leadership and Administration. That year, Marriage Equality passed in her state of Pennsylvania. Within days of the lifting of the same-sex marriage ban, she officiated her first wedding, marrying two men in their 70s, which prompted her to go through the Humanist Society to become endorsed as a Humanist Celebrant.
This would prove to be a life-changing event, leading Forsythe to retire from education in 2018 to pursue her Humanist Celebrant business full-time. Since becoming a celebrant, she has officiated over 250 ceremonies and built a full-time celebrant business, Lehigh Valley Celebrants, which includes a group of four other Humanist Celebrants who work with her. Her background in theater and her previous work as a teacher, as well as a librarian/storyteller, has provided a unique skill-set. Her goal is to craft meaningful, couple-centered ceremonies and to create an atmosphere where everyone feels like they’re part of the celebration. Most recently, she has collaborated with her local LGBTQ center to provide Transgender Namings to those in her community.
Read her TheHumanist.com article, “Love Wins: LGBT Wedding Expo Embraces Marriage Equality”